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ISBN: 9781771133678

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Curing Affluenza

How to Buy Less Stuff and Save the World

Affluenza has not just changed the world, it has also changed the way we see the world. Short of money? Borrow some. Caught in the rain? Buy an umbrella. Thirsty? Buy a bottle of water and throw the bottle away. Our embrace of “convenience” and our acceptance of our inability to plan ahead is an entirely new way of thinking, and over the past seventy years we have built a new and different economic system to accommodate it.

There is nothing inevitable about this current way of thinking, consuming, and producing. On the contrary, the vast majority of humans who have ever lived would find the idea of using our scarce resources to produce things that are designed to be thrown away absolutely senseless. The fact that our consumer culture is a recent innovation does not mean it will be easy to change. Indeed, the last few decades have shown how contagious affluenza can be. But we have not always lived this way, which proves that we don’t have to persist with it. We can change—if we want to.

Contributors

Richard Denniss

Richard Denniss is chief economist of the Australia Institute and the author of Econobabble. He writes for the Monthly, the Canberra Times, and the Australian Financial Review.
Chapter Title Contents Contributors Pages Year Price

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The preface from author Richard Denniss. 5 $0.50

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Chapter 1 focuses on defining or diagnosing ‘affluenza’, discussing topics including environmental destruction, global inequality, culture of wasteful materialism, technological … 26 $2.60

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Chapter 2 examines our current culture of convenience, discussing topics including consuming and producing, credit cards and credit card debt, consumerism (the love of buying things) verses … 27 $2.70

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Chapter 3 explores productivity between the public and private sectors, discussing topics including wasted resources, ‘economic activity’, cycles of production, the ‘Washington … 41 $4.10

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Chapter 4 focuses on employment and unemployment, discussing topics including dignified work, job creation and loss, the coal industry, and labour markets. It includes an excerpt from Jim Stanford. 31 $3.10

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Chapter 5 examines how we choose aspects of society to change, discussing topics including the driving sectors of the economy,  neoliberalism, individuality and individualism, collective … 30 $3.00

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Chapter 6 explores the indicators of a better society, discussing topics including gross domestic product (GDP), economic growth, child literacy and health, and protections. It includes an … 25 $2.50

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Chapter 7 explores the alternatives to the present culture of affluenza, discussing topics including Iceland’s response to the 2008 final crisis and its banks, challenging cultural … 30 $3.00

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Chapter 8 examines how to enact social change, discussing topics including community influence, policies and lobbying, democracy, laws and budgets, examples of tackling affluenza through a … 40 $4.00

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Chapter 9 concludes with a call to action, discussing topics including democratic reform and citizen influence, Neoliberalism, communal goals and future cultural changes. 18 $1.80